The present invention relates generally to transporting stringed musical instruments. More particularly, the present invention relates to a collapsible acoustic musical instrument.
Transporting stringed musical instruments is an endeavor with many perils. This is especially true for stringed musical instruments of the violin family such as cellos, violas, violins, and basses. Transporting an acoustic bass safely has always been particularly difficult due to its size and fragility. The top, back and sides are typically constructed of spruce and maple, usually not more than ⅜″ thick. These are glued together at their edges, and a set of strings is stretched from the top to the bottom of the instrument over a thin bridge. The strings typically exert over three hundred pounds of pressure on the top of the instrument. A slight bump in the wrong place can cause the neck to snap completely off, or the bridge to crash through the top.
Transporting stringed musical instruments in hard shell cases has been previously attempted to help alleviate several of the problems associated with travel. Unfortunately, for some instruments, such as the upright bass, these hard shell cases are often too bulky to fit in cars. Moreover, air travel is no less vexatious. The hard shell cases are typically larger than the mandates, promulgated by the air lines, concerning carry-on baggage. However, even if the instrument is allowed on the airplane, whether as carry-on baggage or stored in the cargo compartment, damage to such instruments being transported in a hard shell case is distressingly common.
Another option is traveling with the musical instrument in a soft bodied bag. Although these soft travel bags may be accommodated in places the hard shell cases are not, they offer very little protection. Further, with heightened security measures at airports presently in effect, many airlines refuse to transport basses at all.
A third option is to rent an instrument at your destination. In addition to expending funds to rent an instrument, rental instruments are often of inferior quality, dissimilarly configured, and of unfamiliar setup or “feel.”
Thus, what is needed is a stringed acoustical musical instrument that collapses into a completely self-contained enclosure. Allowing the instrument to collapse into a smaller form factor alleviates many of the problems discussed above.
Additionally, it would be desirable to have a collapsible instrument that securely stores all of the components removed during the collapsing process.
Furthermore, it would be expedient for the collapsible instrument to retain sound characteristics similar to those of its standard, non-collapsible counterparts.
The problematic nature of traveling with stringed musical instruments is not a conundrum that has gone unnoticed. However, no previous attempts to solve the problem have yet provided a collapsible stringed musical instrument that is travel friendly; completely self contained; preserves the rich sound characteristics of a standard, non-folding acoustic musical instrument; and transitions from a collapsed travel form into a playing configuration, and vice versa, without requiring special skills or the aid of any tools.